Fusion bloody did it again. They're like the Bottas of OWL I sware

Nah that's definitely the right merit. OCE legend turned Houston Pro 👌

Mate easy top 5 to follow for this season (not in order because that's hard to pick)
Lip, Leave, Fleta, Profit and to throw on a rookie proper

You also need to link a blizzard account (I believe with a copy of overwatch) to your twitch. Make sure your watching one of the drops enabled streamers aswell.

Baring in mind, don't quote me on this I got 1st wave invite to the beta instead of through drops so I couldn't tell you if it works or not. Also I don't think blizzard expected just how missive the return of Overwatch would be and the servers are currently being mega nuked with the number of people

This is the single saddest day of the off season

That's Profit, except Profit is better at Overwatch than Tenz is at Val

Generally with retirements a lot of aspects come into play. Most predominantly was probably the financial bonuses of full time streaming. Following that the overwatch league format has been well known to result in burn out. Especially under the effects of the pandemic heavily limiting the number of live events compared to something like season 2 which was all on lan with hype as fuck homestands. The time commitments of both pro play and content creation probably also had hits to his personal life. Outside of his own statements you really can't speculate with any certainty

The long winter of the off season is over!

I played T3-4 comp overwatch in OCE and was reasonably competitive across all roles except hitscan dps (organized league play divided by sr) and playing at low fps (I maxed at about 30) was quite a pain but it was definitely doable. Some roles are definitely easier than other on low fps. I recommend avoiding DPS just because hitscan stuff like widow and high pace stuff like tracer is a lot harder with poor quality hardware. But high cooldown and resource management stuff like tanks and main support lends pretty well to lower hardware capabilities. However only time will tell on the optimization of Overwatch 2, though I would highly recommend not gauging your system performance off the beta as it's likely to be in an unoptimized state (as most beta's are)

Only one?

fun fact tsm sold this roster to complexity for penny's literally 2 days after signing them because of the TJO boys

Real talk, that Florida under titans and charge is a hot take and half. Given this roster is built by one of overwatch (and with his stint in val) if not esports best budget player talent scout in Gunba, a man credited for a lot of the 2020 variants successful scouting the tallent of the players is much less in question. And definitely has much higher potential than the Vancouver and Charge (not to mention they scored hydron who is a hugely talented hitscan in a more dps focused game). Aswell the management and coaching resources behind either of the 2 above teams hasn't exactly been amazing either. Florida probably have better tallent and better coaching having them lower than 16th complaining for 15th is a highly questionable take

The currently announced schedule for this year aswell as the 2022 format are all on liquipedia. Which is recommendation for keeping track of things until a bit closer to the season when the over.gg api kicks in and starts reporting results and game schedules

1st of all welcome to the dead site, most of the site's demise comes down to 2 things. The movement of most Overwatch league discussion to the comments on the Youtube Vods and a lack of articles from writer burnout and the regularly stagnant nature of report OWL with it's huge droughts of news and tier 1 competition.

So assuming for some reason you wanted to have a look at the game, here is the need to watch and know list aswell as some recommendations of who to follow if you came from val

Matches to watch,

Paris vs Fusion, 2020 Summer Showdown NA Grand Finals. Probably one of the greatest sets of all time
Boston vs Houston, The toilet bowl. A match so bad that is amazing and a must watch
Shock vs Titans, 2019 Stage 1 (and stage 2) Playoffs Grand Final. Up there for the greatest match(s) of Goats gameplay ever seen
Titans vs Hunters, 2019 stage 1 week 4. This game is truly epic, please watch it with the sideshow avast watch party. Probably the most entertaining game
Fuel vs Dragons, 2022 May Melee and June Joust. 2 amazing high stakes matches with clutch plays and innovation
Spitfire vs New Your 2018 stage 1 playoffs grand final. The 1st playoffs win in OWL and a banger of a series with a hell of a story behind it

Who to rep in OWL if your here from val.gg
Shanghai Dragons, If your a Gambit fan and love watching perfects coordinated gameplay combined with pop-off plays from some of the most mechanically gifted players in the world. All you will need to learn is void is cracked and Fleta is meta.
San Francisco Shock, If your a Sentinels fan this is probs your go. The roster Sinatraa played for packed with talent and personality like the overwatch Shazam that is Cashew "super" Delisi
Los Angles Gladiators, You want to rep the guard. While this is where the Guard came from, they cut their teeth in Overwatch. Look out for highlights from players like Shu and Kevster as well as the great return of Patipan from his brief holiday on X10
Chengdu Hunters, These boys have Bonkars energy. The ultimate underdog who refused to conform during the most oppressive meta in OWL history. Leave is insane, yotta chad Ameng is goated until his departure and
Philly Fusion, do you wish to live in pain. Have your hope built up only for it all to be broken at the last minute as they come second place again. Well have I got the team for you.
Seoul Dynasty, ascend fans this is the team for you. Watch as the goat himself 'Profit' tries his hardest to carry his usually sub par team mates to the limit waiting for one of them to turn up so they can make a play off run.
Houston Outlaws, Optic fans these are your boys or were you boys. Buying franchises is complicated tldr. Jake is your new favorite player and you dream of pelican team wipes
Dallas Fuel, the origin story of XQC and the home of Sparkle and Fearless players with some of the greatest story lines in overwatch history
Washington Justice, Calypso this is your team. This is the TSM of Overwatch, decay is your new wardel.... good luck?
Vancouver Titans, Breadsticks. That is all
London Spitfire/Paris Eternal, FPX fans these are your guys. The last hopes of EU overwatch, both show signs of life but don't always live up to it
Hangzhou Spark, you like anime?
Guangzhou Charge, the other guys from china
Boston Uprising, The G2 of Overwatch without the massive spending. Watch as they try to relive the glory days of season 1
Atlanta Reign, To all the Faze fans out there. This was the home of babybay and "the greatest aimer the game has seen" Dafran. They do some cool shit have a fair few upsets. KSP is nuts and Gator is the OG main tank from the team Goats
Toronto Defiant, I think Rise fans might be on for something here. They have a rebuilt roster with some solid potential, I reckon you might find this to be your team
New York Excelsior, These are owned by the same guys as andbox. They have a rich history of triumph and domination as well as loss and heartbreak
Los Angeles Valiant, Pick another one

Enjoy your stay as you meme on the not quite alive website that is over.gg

When your the only man who went from over.gg -> vlr.gg instead of vlr.gg -> over.gg but don't even make the list. Kind of sadge

Wait you only just realised over.gg exists?

I mean I would definitely call this more of a natural decline. There is definitely something to be said for the move to YouTube allowing for a great amount of post match discussion to be done in the comments section instead of on a 3rd party sight like over.gg. The real big killer I think was looking part of the main draw to over.gg, the journalism which to be fair is because a lot of the writers either moved to vlr.gg or to over sights entirely (a fair few OWL which is pretty cool). But because of this most news was pretty late and the articles were pretty short meaning by the time the hype was gone and discussion ended. I remember a tiny push a bit back where a few over.gg diehards started writing some articles which was fun for a bit

Damn Chengdu, big sad on the stage playoffs. But also this does indeed validate that leave is the most valuable player for the season. And for all the LIP fans, mvp aint just the cracked out kid on the best team, its the player who is most valuable to the team. On Shanghai LIP is just another one of there top quality players who had a slighly better season than his peers on the dragons, where as leave it a shining star going above and beyond the impact of his teammates making him move valuable to Hunters than LIP is to the Dragons. And since pretty much every other candidate is out we're just back to the age of mvp race of guy who stands out on the best team vs the guy who is hardcore carrying a good team to be places they shouldn't be (JJonak vs Carpe, Season 2 there wasn't really a contest, Fleta vs Carpe and to an extent Xzi).

NOOOO THE BREAD BOWL

So like let's get a thread going on which absolute mad lad from the free agent or reasonable trade (no profit/lip kinda trades) is gonna have to try fill the size 40 shoes striker just left at the shock

My best two candidates are the recently released godsb, kid had a lot of potential and still does seeing him come alive again on the shock would be epic and innovation who I would say is really the best tracer hitscan talent in contenders right now

Nah, looks fine to me up gaming move to China confirmed

When blizzard decide to send every off tanks career the way of youngjins. Feelsbadman

That's a pretty colossal ooft if I've ever seen one

I had faith in my boys....

They didn't think it could be done... but ChengDO what others don't!

Yo, why aint they opening with this match instead of Dallas Houston. Assuming all goes well this should be an absolute banger

God I hope it's not quite time to pull out the :candle: yet. This man is truely a legend :'(

I love how people have just started writing the articles that aint there. Surely we keep this up

indeed

Disclaimer, I don't claim to write very well or for over.gg for that matter. Just got bored and thought since there was nothing out from over.gg on the LA news i'd give it a try myself, also don't judge my poor grammar to hard :)

The Los Angles Valiant have announced their new Chinese roster following the organizations structural rebuild to partner LinGan E-Sports, former academy partners of the Chengdu hunters, who will be handling operations for Company’s overwatch league team withing the 2021 season.

The team announced on weibo that the 2021 LA Valiant Roster would consist of former overwatch league players Krystal’s and Wya who both most recently played with the Guangzhou Charge and a cast of Chinese Rookies, mostly fielded from former The One Winner contenders players.

Insert cool picture here of probably Krystal since his like the big name draw for this roster. Also surely reply with the word pineapple if your still reading the low quality news post :)

Krystal any Wya joins the Valiant having most recently played for the Charge’s academy team ‘Ultra Prime Academy’ as two-way players with the Charge. Regularly fighting against relegation before a re-structure in the 4th week of Season 2 Contenders China which left them free agents going into the 2021 off season. It should also be noted that Krystal played with the Hangzhou Spark in 2019 before leaving with controversy and legal action being taken again the player by the team.

The new Chinese Contenders rookies within the roster are DPS player MoLanran, Main Tank Silver3 and Support Highbee who most recently played for The One Winner, ShowCheng who recently played Off Tank for Flag Gaming and Main Tank player NvM who recently returns from a 2 year long retirement in December 2018.

2 big concerns of this roster are going to be NvM’s return to competitive play following his 2-year long hiatus from game having last played for LGE in contenders China Season 3 under the name ‘Aidoudou’. The other being the transition of highbee from is previous role as T1W’s off tank to the flex support position of the LA Valiant.

This season’s LA Valiant staff will consist of Coach’s JpCat formerly of T1W and Hiko formerly of Flag Gaming who have the task to prepare and mold their rookie team before the roster’s debut game against the Chengdu Hunters 17/04/2021 in week 1 of the 2021 Overwatch League season.

The Los Angles Valiant’s Roster is:

• Cai "Krystal" Shilong (DPS)
• Liao “MoLanran” Yang (DPS)
• Han “Siver3” Haibo (Tank)
• Wem “NvM” Yelin (Tank)
• Cheng “ShowCheng” Yu (Tank)
• Zhang “Highbee” Zening (Support)
• Qi “Way” Haomiao (Support)

Well that was fun :)

Well as 1 on the 3 survivors I guess it would be good to add some of my own thoughts to this thread.

1. Even as a diehard fan of fusion I can't justify placing then above a Shanghai roster who have only really functionally changed main tanks swapped ding for Erster and luffy for Molly. Especially given the easily argued down grade with both starting tank players.

2. I think it's kind of optimistic to believe at neither Houston or Boston aren't likely to expload or fail to click. As such that massive risk means I could not justify them taking a place over the rock solid splitfire. Especially given the recent steel series event where splitfire played a solidly close set against the glads while Boston got clean swept.

3. Man I fucking love actually seeing some discussion on this site. Granted I do think a lot of the drop off right now is definitely related to the longer than usual off season meaning less games and the lack of articles relating to the game and news which I'd assume is a result of a number of the writers producing content for vlr.gg instead

I mean to an extent. Of course the off season drought doesn't help but that's kinda just how OW esports is. But from a site level, it makes a lot more sense to develop the Val.gg site primarily as it's experiencing massive growth as the game starts to devolope (similarly to what happened with over.gg when OW started to boom). Also with overwatch 2 coming I wouldn't call in meza with the :candle: yet

not quite as the good as season 1 Sanfran's triple Andre team

And this day, the streak was ended

The spitfire all western was confirmed in the video detailing nouky as the new GM

I'm very interested to see what cans for the rest of this team with rapel, Doha and the Dallas Eternal

I could definitely see him being part of the new EU talent Spitfire rebuild. Other than that possibly a move to Outlaws or Defiant (depending on the direction defiant take)

I mean probably not, I'd say they might be waiting until proper off season. Aswell they are likely looking to sell of some players to teams that don't seem to pull all the promise out of new players. I could see myongbong defs getting shipped off.

I mean understandable. Mans had a hell of the job this year, even working in the back end predominately. I could understand wanting to step back from it all and into a different role.

I mean definitely a fair bit but also their is definitely a lot teams that break the mold on that so it clearly isn't the only option,

For example,
Houston: who have been rather mediocre since stage one season one but carried a huge amount of publicity off there team personalities and their content)

Shanghai: legit became one of the most popular teams by sucking at the video game in season one

Atlanta: middle of the pack team with strong personalities and content holding a large following (yes they came for defran but stayed for the brand)

I think I really comes back to the old "is marketable" meme from pre-season one.

And a lot of that marketability comes from the angle that the team takes in marketing. Nyxl and Justice do provide very good opposites in showing that though, the Nyxl marketing works so well because they marketed around 2 things, there city and there player personalities. Two things with really worked well for them due to strong NY pride (especially in a generally good team) and the amount their players put personalities forward. Where as Justices marketing appeals to American patriotism more than it does locally, as such a bunch of Korean players and a Swede being pushed as the American team, while that just aint marketable without the results to push past it.

Tldr, marketing has to match the roster and branding together to be successful which is really what matters

Just one thing Snivy, double check your months in the opening sentence, then the article is golden

Hey I'm just saying Atlanta do kind of have an opening for someone who covers that babybay hero pool and ta1yo does fit the bill

The Glads had to make room for big boy sideshow to come in and party

Big call washington to win by default with titans not presenting enough possible players to compete

for people who want to double check that, they were the support line for the Russian team Tornado Rox

Heres a fun one for the history books, mistakes actually has a history on support. Playing the role professionally prior to his time as the premier Tracer player for 123, where he played alongside main tank tonic who was also a support player prior to 123.

The more you know :)

It's always sad to see the old names leave, but it make sense to follow on with his law degree and such. Reminds me a bit of TwoEasy. Realistically it's kind of the reality behind esports, as far a it being a carear goes there is kind of 3 options retire into coaching, pursue another industry or move into personality work (streaming, casting, analysis work, ect). However as the guy who sat next to gumba once said, "I've spent all my years in tech wishing that I gave professional skiing" (paraphrasing a really obscure reference) always worth giving the dream a go, even if it probably won't work

Well we already know leave is confirmed for a contract next year so that would make sense for covering YangXiaoLong however it will be interesting to see if they bring in another main tank or not

Most likely stay in working with team itself when they travel as a lot of the reason Paris managed to sign sparkle was that he wanted to continue working with head coach Rush, so I'd say it is reasonable to believe that sparkle would want to work with the team itself and travel with them which would hardly be conducive to playing for an academy team given the constant change of ping, availability and time differences that would make organizing it a nightmare for a GM